Years.
All Imports.
Percentages by Classes.
Exports of Domestic Merchandise.
Percentages by Classes.
I. II. III. IV. V. VI. I. II. III. IV. V. VI.
1820 11.15 19.85 3.64 7.48 56.86 1.02 4.79 19.51 60.46 9.42 5.66 0.16 1830 11.17 15.39 6.72 8.22 56.97 0.93 4.65 16.32 62.34 7.04 9.34 0.31 1840 15.54 15.46 11.71 11.56 45.09 0.64 4.09 14.27 67.61 4.34 9.47 0.22 1850 10.38 12.37 6.75 15.08 54.93 0.49 5.59 14.84 62.26 4.49 12.72 0.10 1860 10.11 15.26 10.48 6.67 56.52 1.00 3.85 12.21 68.31 3.99 11.33 0.31 1870 12.38 22.08 12.18 12.51 39.69 1.16 11.12 13.53 56.64 3.66 14.96 0.09 1880 15.01 17.69 19.74 l6.59 29.43 1.54 32.30 23.47 28.98 3.52 11.26 0.47 1890 16.28 16.89 21.62 14.81 29.23 1.17 15.62 26.59 36.03 5.50 15.68 0.58 1900 11.52 15.65 32.50 15.79 23.90 0.64 16.59 23.21 23.75 11.15 24.22 1.08 1908 12.19 12.31 30.43 16.43 27.77 0.87 10.30 18.10 30.34 14.23 26.68 0.35 1909 11.67 10.99 35.89 17.48 23.24 0.73 6.75 16.76 33.62 14.89 27.52 0.46
interests in South America are relatively small. The shares of the ten nations having the largest part in the trade of the country were as follows in 1909:—
Imports from Exports to
Great Britain 247,474,104 521,281,999 Germany 161,951,673 247,310,084 Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador 88,321,706 191,438,400 France 132,069,748 126,361,959 Cuba 107,334,716 48,217,689 Brazil 117,062,725 10,765,836 Holland 30,905,712 89,121,124 Mexico 52,578,454 53,512,947 Japan 68,116,665 23,471,837 Belgium 36,236,568 44,477,380
The leading imports in 1909 were as follows, indicating in each case, when not evidently unnecessary, the value of finished manufactures and of unmanufactured materials: Silk (manufactured, $32,963,162; unmanufactured, $75,512,401); hides and skins, other than fur skins ($103,758,277); sugar and molasses ($91,535,466); fibres, vegetables and textile grasses (manufactured, $33,511,696; unmanufactured, $54,860,698); coffee ($86,524,006); chemicals ($86,401,432); cotton (manufactured, $68,380,780; raw and waste, $15,421,854); rubber (manufactured, $1,462,541, unmanufactured, $83,682,013); wool (manufactured, $22,058,712; unmanufactured, $55,530,366); and wood (manufactured, $43,620,591; unmanufactured, $13,584,172). Precious stones ($43,620,591); fruits and nuts; copper, iron and steel; tobacco (leaf $25,897,650; manufactured, $4,138,521); tin; spirits, wines and liquors; oils, paper, works of art, tea and leather ($16,270,406), being the remaining items in excess of $15,000,000 each. The leading exports of domestic merchandise in excess of the same value were the following: cotton ($496,334,448); iron and steel, excluding ores ($157,680,331); meat and dairy products ($151,964,037); petroleum, vegetable and animal oils $126,350,916); wheat and wheat flour ($100,529,381); copper, excluding ores ($92,584,640); wood ($72,312,880); leather ($47,146,415); tobacco ($41,554,058); coal ($38,441,518); agricultural implements ($27,327,428); corn and corn meal ($27,062,128); animals ($21,007,122); chemicals ($20,330,335); oil-cake ($20,245,818); fruits and nuts ($18,707,670); vehicles ($16,774,036); naval stores ($16,103,076); and paper ($15,280,541).
New York, New Orleans, Boston, Galveston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco and Puget Sound are, in order, the leading customs districts of the country in the value of their imports and exports. Almost one-half of the country's foreign trade is done through the single port of New York. In 1909 more than eight-tenths of all imports of the country entered by, and more than seven-tenths of all exports went out through, the eight customs districts just named. Savannah and Charleston are other great ports and southern outlets, particularly for cotton.
Of the imports and exports of 1861 two-thirds (in value) were carried in American vessels. By 1864 the proportion had fallen to 27.5%, and except for a temporary slight recovery after the close of the war there has been a steady progress downward since that time, until in 1908 only 9.8% of the commerce of the country was carried on under its own flag. More than half the shipping entering and leaving the ports of time United States in 1908 was British; Germany, the Scandinavian countries, France, Holland and Italy ranking next in order; the United States, although ranking after Great Britain, contributed less than a seventh of the total. The total tonnage entered was 38,539,195 net tons (of 100 cub. ft. each), as compared with 18,010,649 tons in 1880.
Of the total of tonnage entered in 1909, 30,443,695 tons represented seaport entries, the remainder entering across the land frontiers.
The merchant marine of the United States in 1900 totalled 5,164,839 net tons, which was less than that of 1860 (5,353,808), in which year American shipping attained an amount which only in recent years has been again reached. In the decline that followed the Civil War an apparent minimum was reached of 4,068,034 tons in 1880; but this does not adequately indicate the depression of the shipping intererst, inasmuch as the aggregate was kept up by the tonnage of vessels engaged in the coasting trade and commerce of the inland waters, from which foreign shipping is by law excluded. The decline of tonnage engaged in ocean traffic was from 2,546,237 net tons in 1860 to 1,352,810 in 1880; and this decline continued in later years. On the other hand the aggregate tonnage of the country has again begun to rise, and in 1908 the total was 7,365,445 net tons, a third of this being on the Great Lakes, and somewhat under one-half on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Of the same total 6,371,865 tons represented the coasting trade, only 930,413 tons being engaged in the foreign trade of the country. New England still supplies a quarter of the shipping annually built along the entire seaboard of the country; but more is yearly built upon the Great Lakes than upon the seaboard.
Internal Commerce: Railways and Canals.—Large as has become the foreign commerce of the country, it is small beside the aggregate interior commerce between the states of the Union. The basis of this is necessarily facilities for transportation. At the end of 1908 the railway lines[1] of the country totalled 232,046 m.—more than those of all Europe. The traffic on these, measured in units moved one mile, was 28,797,781,231 passenger-miles, and 214,340,129,523 freight miles. Various systems, with joint or separate outlets from the Pacific coast to the Mississippi Valley, provide for the handling of transcontinental freight. Rivers and canals are relatively much less important to-day than in the middle decades of the 19th century, before the growth of the railway traffic made small by comparison the movement on the interior watercourses. According to a special report of the department of commerce and labour of 1906, 290 streams are used to a “substantial degree” for navigation, affording together an aggregate of 2600 m. of 10 ft. navigation, or 5800 m. of 6 ft. navigation at ordinary water. Of the last almost half belongs to the Mississippi river. More than $250,000,000 has been spent by the national government for the improvement of waterways, yet no general system exists, and a large part of this enormous sum has been wasted on unimportant or impossible projects, especially in recent decades, since the river navigation has been a declining interest. 1360 m. of state-owned canals and 632 m. of private canals of “some importance” were also reported as in operation in 1909. More than an equal length of canal ways (2444 m., costing $80,000,000) was reported as having been abandoned after construction. Of recent years there has been a great revival of interest in the improvement of inland waterways upon systematic plans, which promises better than an earlier period of “internal improvements” in the first half of the 19th century, the results of which were more or less disastrous for the state and local governments that undertook them, and only less so for the national government. The Erie Canal in New York, the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, and the Sault Ste Marie Canal are the most important in the country.
Coal, iron ore, building materials, lumber, livestock, cotton, fruits, vegetables, tobacco and grain are the great items in the domestic commerce of the country, upon its railways, inland waterways, and in the coasting trade. The magnitude of these items is so great as to defy exact determination; data for the formation of some idea of them can be found in the account of the mineral, forest and agricultural resources of the country. It was estimated by the Bureau of the Census that in 1906 the tonnage of freight moved by American vessels within American waters, excluding harbour traffic, was 177,519,758 short tons (as compared with 1,514,906,985 long tons handled by the railways of the country). Of this total 42.6% was moved on the Great Lakes, and 36.8% on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and waterways.
The Great Lakes are connected by canals with the Atlantic, the St Lawrence river and the Mississippi; the connexion with the first being through the Erie Canal, a 7-ft. waterway, and that with the St Lawrence through Canadian canals that afford a 14-ft. navigation. The connexion with the Mississippi is through the drainage-canal
